Christmas sing-a-long

The class sang their hearts out .. and lets say I'm done with singing for awhile. Music is not my fortay and I am not a singer that is for sure. I do enjoy a Christmas carol here and there every year though. I think the performance was great considering our lack of practice time. I wasn't really watching the audience much but I think most (ok maybe some) of the other students sang with us and there wasn't as much laughter as I expected (but I think that is a good thing!). Thank you to everyone for putting their best into the performance and making it fun for me to participate. Performing takes a lot of practice and I don't think I understood that until now.. and I commend the people who have to do it all the time. Christmas is creeping up on us and I'm counting down the days till I put up my tree :). I promise it won't be before Dec 4th though... uggg Dec 4th won't come fast enough. Great job EY06!!!!

Future Art Endeavours

I know that after this couse ends I will continue doing art in many different forms. I will always love cake decorating! I want to become better at it, and explore new techniques and ideas (I made a Baptism cake for my friend's daughter on the weekend and it turned out great!). A long time ago I started scrapbooking and I would like to get back into it again, if I ever have the time. I feel more comfortable doing minor drama activities but will need some more practice to be able to drama with ease and confidence. The other thing that I would absolutely love to learn, is to play the guitar. Unfortunately I don't think I will be able to because I'm getting carpal tunnel, but hey I can always wish right ! (I think i'll have to stick to guitar hero to reach my dreams :P). Once school finishes I will hopefully get back into drawing as well! So much to do and so little time.

I am very excited for Christmas to come because I am going to paint my windows at home with Christmas scenes. I have done it before and it looks great (but isn't fun to clean up after xmas is over). Art will always have a big part in my life, and i'm very glad that it will!

Wonderful ideas!

I want to comment on all the wonderful lessons and ideas that are being created for the sets of linked lessons. I know that we've only presented half of them, but I am soo impressed by the creativity and original ideas that my classmates are thinking of. Myself I am more interested in the visual arts, so I found the performing arts lessons to be very interesting as I hope to be able to use them one day in the classroom. The only thing that I would like is to experience the middle of the lesson more. I like participating by doing the art or the drama activity; it helps to show how you would do it in the actual classroom. There are lots of students in the class so maybe next time it could be planned to do some of the linked lessons before practicum, and the rest after. Great stuff though!

Art Show

Well the art show was a success! I only chose three students to attend from my class and two out of three showed up so that was great. I would definitely do an art show at a school one day but plan for lots of organizing time so we aren't running around like crazy! It was wonderful to see all the excited children and parents who are even more excited than their kids. I for sure wasn't a big fan of the space we were in because of the industrial openness and limited spaces to hang the art but I think it still worked well. With all the people in the space it definitely livened it up. What I enjoyed most was all the wonderful ideas and projects that were used in the classes. The students enjoyed doing the art but I think 'the teachers' enjoyed it, maybe even more than the students :). Just want to add that I helped Erin and Flo finish up the lovely poster/sign, helped greet people and served cake for a part of the evening. Yay teamwork!

My carved pumpkin

I really enjoy carving pumpkins and this year I finally decided to do one after many years of missing out. Well I don't really enjoy the cleaning out the guts part but that is only one small step. Of course I choose a difficult picture that takes me waayy too long but the end result is worth it. Next year I think i'm going to do more that's for sure. I have a tip for everyone though. I carved it too early and to save it hopefully for Halloween night, I found out you can coat it with petroleum jelly to help it keep. We'll see if it works!

Aww.. oh wait, umm that's me !

So this was one of the first drawings I did from a photograph of myself. The picture is from a trip to Victoria with my family. I created the background with crayons on pulp and then the drawing was done with pencil crayon on cartridge paper.

Pretty Flowers

This is a picture I made in Grade 12 using pencil crayons. I drew it on a thick textured paper, almost like pulp to give it a textured, bumpy effect. My camera takes crappy pictures though so it isn't as clear as it should be. I went through a 'flower' phase and I still enjoy pictures or drawing pictures of flowers.

Art History

After our brief art history lesson last week I realized that I would really love to take an art history class. The only thing is.. we don't really have that kind of stuff here. Although art is slowly being brought to our post-secondary institutions in PG.. is isn't really readily available. My problem now is the time or motivation to explore it other places like the library or internet. I feel so busy with school and life I barely have time to dabble in hobbies already. Hmm... maybe when i'm settled into teacher life I could look in to learning more. We'll see!!

Other forms of art

Over the summer (well May to August), I participated in many tours at the Two Rivers Gallery which were very similar to the one we had on Monday. I've seen kids of all ages and many esl groups of adults come and get a tour of the gallery. It is a wonderful experience and I have seen so many smiling faces after they're done. The best part for me is to do the art projects that accompany one of the shows in the gallery. After doing the 'music' art and the boats on Monday I realized I really, really miss doing art. In high school I took so many art classes and spent a lot of my spare time working on various projects to put in my Grade 12 portfolio. Once I began post -secondary the art just kinda stopped. I actually brought in pieces of art to show the Grade 5/6 students from my last practicum and they loved it! They had spare time and tried to replicate some of the pieces. It was wonderful. I am looking forward to maybe one day when I can dabble in art in my spare time again. I am also looking forward to when we'll be doing art projects in the class. I guess even though I don't dabble in visual arts today, my cake/cupcake decorating it how I make art today. I've moved on to do other activities like sewing, knitting, baking, cross-stitching and cooking.. I guess that is my art for now!

last post con't....

Although I could probably continue to talk about the gallery opening from tonight, I think that after reading Jenn's post (which was fantastic by the way) and everyone else's posts, it showed me that I can learn so much from everyone in the cohort. I know that each and every person has so much to say and I am kinda glad we have this blog to talk about everything and everything about ourselves and our creativity. I thought that I was really creative before but I am wondering about the truth within that. I don't think that I am creative in all aspects of my life and hope that one day I can change that.

A Roomful of Missing Women

This evening I attended the opening of Betty Kovacic's show 'A Roomful of Missing Women' at the Two Rivers Gallery. The content of the show dealt with portraits of 50 women who are missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. While I had seen many of the paintings this summer during the time I worked at the gallery, it was incredible to see them installed. The middle of the room was dominated by 50 blow-up dolls cloaked in black that left haunting memories. It was interesting to see other people's reactions to the show and how it affected each and everyone in a different way. To me it seemed there was a sad or upsetting nature to the feeling of the room and left me thinking about the hurt and pain that these women suffered. I can't even imagine the pain and difficulties that she faced preparing these portraits. This show was intense, but I believe in a good way as it exposes these women and gives recognition to the horrible conditions and situations that they and many other women face still today.

Bowling Cake

I thought the first picture I posted should obviously be a picture of my baking because that is just me .... I like to be creative when i'm baking; no boring, plain cakes from me! This is a cake (and cookies) I made for a bowling league roll-off night.

Trial Post

Just checking that it's working!!